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THIS MUSLIM CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHY USING A TERM LIKE ‘BLOW AWAY’ AND NEW YORK IN THE SAME SENTENCE MIGHT ALARM SOME PEOPLE…

‘Blow away’ competition text lands Muslim in Canada jail

AFPFebruary 3, 2012

MONTREAL, Feb 3, 2012 (AFP) – A Muslim businessman in Canada became a terror suspect for telling his sales staff in a text message to “blow away” the competition at a New York City trade show, a religious association said Friday.

Moroccan-born Saad Allami, who works as a telecommunications company sales manager, was arrested three days after he sent the message in January 2011 and detained while police searched his home, said the Muslim Council of Montreal.

“The whole time, the officers kept repeating to the plaintiff’s wife that her husband was a terrorist,” said court filings in a lawsuit filed by Allami, cited by local media. Allami was released after four hours of questioning.

Some of his colleagues reportedly claimed they were also held for hours at the Canada-US border on account of the accusations made against their boss.

“Mr Allami’s statements, when considered in the context of which they were given, were nothing to draw such alarm or suspicion,” said Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal.

“It is clear that his arrest was the result of racial profiling and a knee-jerk reaction to label him as a terror suspect simply due to his religious background.”

Allami is seeking Can$100,000 ($100,603) from Quebec’s provincial police, a police sergeant and the justice department for unlawful detention, unlawful arrest, loss of income and damage to his reputation.

QURAN 4;34 Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance – [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.

I WOULD SAY THIS IMAM IS FULL OF SHIITE…WHY DO MUSLIMS NEED ANY SORT OF ‘FATWA’ TO KNOW IT’S WRONG TO BEAT YOUR WIFE? ACCORDING TO THIS IMAM IT’S BECAUSE THE MISINTERPRET THIS PASSAGE FROM THE QURAN…WHAT IS MISINTERPRETED? IT CLEARLY SAYS TO STRIKE THEIR WIFE IF THE MRS. STARTS GETTING UPPITY AND OBSTINATE…I UNDERSTAND WHAT IT SAYS JUST FINE, SO DO 1 BILLION MUSLIMS.

Canadian imam Syed Soharwardy to issue fatwa against ‘honour’ killings

CALGARY — A Calgary imam will take the bold step of issuing a fatwa — an official religious edict pronounced by a scholar of the Muslim faith — against honour killings and domestic abuse on Saturday.

Imam Syed Soharwardy, who is head imam at the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre as well as the founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, will deliver the fatwa at a mosque in Mississauga, Ont. He will be backed by more than 30 imams and Muslim scholars from across North America who want to send a strong message to other members of their faith.

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“Within the Muslim community, there are a few clergy people — it’s a very small number, no doubt about it — who misinterpret the Qur’an and say it is OK to beat a wife,” Soharwardy said. “That kind of mentality has to be changed, and has to be confronted.”

Soharwardy said that while he has been doing research into the issue of misogyny in Islam for a long time, it was the recent high-profile Shafia murder trial that prompted him to take action.

Mohammad Shafia, his second wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya and the couple’s eldest son, Hamed, were found guilty of first-degree murder earlier this week in Kingston, Ont. The prosecution’s case was built around the premise that the Shafias murdered four of their relatives because they had stained the family’s “honour.”

Court handouts

Zainab Shafia, left, Sahar Shafia, top-right, and Geeti Shafia

“Those people who justify these crimes in the name of Islam, they are dead wrong,” Soharwardy said. “There is no place for these crimes in our faith.”

Soharwardy said the fatwa will contain evidence of verses in the Qur’an where mistakes in translation from the original Arabic may have led some people to believe that Islam accepts violence against women.

“In some cases, we are coming back with a translation that conflicts with the rest of our understanding of the Qur’an,” Soharwardy said. “I don’t think it’s acceptable . . . The Prophet Mohammed never did these kinds of things, he never said you can hit your wife.”

By issuing the fatwa, Soharwardy said he and other scholars also hope to make non-Muslims understand that anti-female sentiment has no place in the true teachings of Islam.

This is not the first time Soharwardy has taken a stance on a current event by issuing a formal edict. In 2010, the Calgary imam and other imams associated with the Islamic Supreme Council issued a fatwa condemning terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists.

While not legally binding, fatwas carry substantial weight within Islam, particularly with followers of the Shia branch of the faith.

CANADIANS ARE A GREAT PEOPLE, WE’LL LAUGH AT ANYTHING..YES, EVEN MUSLIMS..APPARENTLY THIS FACT UPSET MANY MUSLIMS, EVEN NON CANADIAN MUSLIMS…I THINK THEY SHOULD PROTEST THIS OUTRAGE BY LEAVING…

Canadian Television Gag Irks Muslims

A gag on Canadian television which showed Muslim “worshipers” preventing motorists from leaving a parking lot angers Muslims.

By Elad Benari

First Publish: 1/30/2012, 3:15 AM

“Muslim worshippers”

Israel news photo: Screenshot

A gag which aired on the Canadian program “Just for Laughs: Gags” has managed to upset Muslims both in Canada and around the world, Shalom Toronto reported.

“Just for Laughs: Gags” is a hidden camera comedy show which features silly pranks on unsuspecting subjects while hidden cameras capture their response.

Last April, Shalom Toronto reported, the program aired a gag which showed six “Muslims” lying in wait for motorists returning to their car in a parking lot, and then laying out prayer mats and kneeling to “pray” on them.

The gag showed the “prayer” taking a long time and preventing the motorists from exiting the parking lot. The motorists are shown reacting angrily to the “Muslim worshipers”.

After the worshipers leave the parking lot, the gag continues when a “policeman” appears and wishes to give the drivers a traffic ticket for having parked in the lot for longer than five minutes despite a sign explicitly prohibiting from doing so. The drivers try to explain that they were delayed because of the “worshipers”, but fail to convince the “officer”, until he finally reveals to them that the whole incident was a gag.

Shalom Toronto reported that the video was recently uploaded to YouTube with Arabic subtitles. The individual or individuals who uploaded the video complained that the gag offended Islam.

The clip was criticized by Muslims who accused the television program of deliberately humiliating Islam. The clip received 1,900 “dislikes” and one talkbacker even called to boycott the program. Another respondent claimed that the owner of channel which airs the program is probably Jewish, arguing that only Jews can make fun of Islam and Christianity. Certain angry users expressed their wishes that Allah will extract revenge and curse those behind the gag.

In contrast, other respondents made claims against Islam for carrying out acts of terrorism which murdered thousands of people, and criticized Muslims for their inability to deal with humor. Some people who identified themselves as Muslims said they actually liked the gag and did not see it as causing any damage or harm to Islam.

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KINGSTON, ONT. – Members of the local Muslim community reacted with mixed emotions Sunday as the Kingston Mills murder trial concluded.

“It’s a sad day for everybody because we have a broken family with parents that are going to be away from their surviving children for a very long time,” said Imam Sikander Hashmi of the Kingston Islamic Society.

“I wouldn’t call it a good day … (it’s) a good day for justice, perhaps … but overall, I think there’s sadness.”

Like Hashmi, Alia Hogben expressed feelings of a heavy heart.

“I feel very very sad. I’m sad for the deaths,” said Hogben, president of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women.

“We should be focusing on the death of four young women and girls.”

Hogben also expressed frustration over the Crown’s use of the term “honour killings” to describe the deaths of Mohammad Shafia’s first wife, Rona, and his three daughters, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti.

“I’m very upset about the fact that this was played out as “honour killing” and somewhat exotic and strange, instead of the fact that this is femicide, which is the killing of girls and women because men, our patriarchy, thinks that that is OK,” Hogben said.

The idea that someone can make a judgment that another’s behaviour is “deviant,” and should therefore be killed is one that appalled Hogben.

“My concern is far greater and more deep,” she said. “The use of the term honour killing was dreadful, utterly dreadful, and it shouldn’t have been used.”

Imam Hashmi agreed with Hogben that using the term honour killing in the case did more harm than good.

“There was also a lot of frustration in our community for having the allegations coming out of this courtroom being linked to our faith,” Hashmi said.

When the trial began, Hashmi made a point of addressing the fact that there is no such thing as an honour killing in the Islamic faith. He dedicated an entire Friday khutbah (Islamic sermon) to the topic. This, he said, is because it is his job as a religious leader to denounce the notion of honour killings altogether.

“Our job now is to continue the fight against domestic violence and honour-based violence,” Hashmi said.

“We’ve got to continue and take concrete steps to ensure that something like this never happens again.”

The verdict of guilty for Shafia, his son, Hamed, and his second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, on all counts of first-degree murder brings an end to a case Hashmi described as being full of the same mixed emotions he and Hogben expressed.

“It was a very difficult case for the public, especially for members of the Muslim community, to follow simply because it was tragic in just so many ways,” Hashmi said.

“It evoked a number of emotions — there was a lot of anger, there was a lot of shock, there was sadness … definitely, definitely sadness.”

“We hope that we can prove, as we’ve claimed, that we’ve been treated unfairly and that whatever happens with us will never happen to anyone else in the future, as a student.”

The lawsuit comes almost a year after the trio filed a human rights complaint against uOttawa alleging racial discrimination and intimidation.

“There were all sorts of comments and differential treatment towards these Arabic students,” said Mireille Gervais from the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa.

“This is indeed a systemic issue.”

According to Gervais, they were treated “in a demeaning way, in class, in front of peers, and it escalated to a point where they’ve all either withdrawn from the program or been placed on probation, in no way, pursuing their studies as they normally should be.”

MUSLIMS FOR CENTURIES HAVE LIED TO PROTECT ISLAM, AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED. A FEW IMAMS HERE STAND UP AND DECRY ‘HONOR KILLINGS’ AS ‘UNISLAMIC’ JUST TO GIVE THE STUPID KAFIR WARM AND FUZZY FEELINGS FOR ISLAM..THANKFULLY, SOME OF US KNOW BETTER…

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Sheema Khan

Shafia trial a wake-up call for Canadian Muslims

sheema khan

Special to Globe and Mail Update

Published Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 7:00AM EST

Last updated Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 10:55AM EST

The Shafia trial, now mercifully over, has been an “Ecole Polytechnique” moment for many Canadian Muslims. A shocking wake-up call to the ugly reality of family violence rooted in the need to control women – ostensibly for the sake of family “honour”. Horrific details of dysfunction within the Shafia family, culminating with the murder of four women – have shaken many out of complacency.

More related to this story

Understanding the dynamics of a ‘crime of honour’

How arrogance and mistakes led to Shafia’s murder conviction

Afghan woman strangled to death, apparently for bearing girl

In quotes

The 10 most shocking quotes from the Shafia trial

Background

Timeline: The Shafia murder trial

Video

Three guilty in Shafia killing

Mind you, those working in the field of social services, have known all too well about the breadth and depth of family dysfunction. Their voices, their pleadings have been largely ignored, as community leaders have been more interested in building grandiose mosques, than dealing with social illnesses within the community. During media coverage of the Aqsa Parvez murder, traditional institutions, for the most part, stuck their collective heads in the sand, pointed to domestic violence elsewhere, and blamed the media for biased coverage. Those who wanted to do something, anything, to address the issue, realized they had to bypass those who refused to open their eyes.

And so, before the Shafia trial even began, a grass-roots campaign, facilitated by social media, emerged to address the issue of family violence head-on. No more denials. No more defensiveness.

Imam Sikander Hashmi, the newly-appointed imam in Kingston, took the lead the day the Shafia trial began. In no uncertain terms, he told the congregation that honour crimes were heinous, and forbidden by Islam. He reminded the audience that while such crimes were committed by different ethnic/religions groups, Muslims should step up to the plate and be part of the solution. That includes unequivocal condemnation of murder, and the establishment of resources to address family tensions.

This was soon followed by a National Call to Eradicate Domestic Violence, signed by over 100 mosques and community leaders across the country, which stated: “Domestic violence and, in the extreme, practices such as killing to “restore family honour” violate clear and non-negotiable Islamic principles, and so we categorically condemn all forms of domestic violence.” As part of this call, imams across Canada gave sermons unequivocally condemning family violence. Signatories pledged to go further by raising awareness, and providing workshops in mediation, anger management and family counselling.

Furthermore, a group of Muslim men launched the first-ever Muslim community White Ribbon Campaign at the Islamic Institute of Toronto. Men and boys pledged never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls. It was also promoted at Toronto’s annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit convention, with an audience of 15,000. The White Ribbon campaign is scheduled to go nationwide on March 8, coinciding with International Women’s Day.

Last week, the London Muslim Resource Centre for Social Services and Integration announced the launch of the “Honouring Families” project, in partnership with Ceasefire, a renowned anti-gang program based in Chicago. The premise is that one can “save face” through mediation and non-violent options.

MRCSSI, led by Dr. Mohammad Baobaid, has a wealth of experience (and success) dealing with inter-generational conflict in Muslim families, finding key risk indicators for honour-based violence, such as: cross-generational gender conflict (e.g. father-daughter) which is exacerbated by the involvement of extended family; an older male sibling taking on a parental role; when extended family or a parent overseas has a significant say in the parenting; pre-migration trauma or post-migration stresses; and family isolation. In many of these cases, the parents are disengaged from the solution, and blame the child entirely. They hold uncompromising views of their tradition, and/or maintain rigid interpretations of Islamic teachings regarding gender roles and expectations. The risk is highest when the conflict involves adolescent girls. Also, reports with the police or child protection services can worsen the situation, as the child subsequently denies any problem for fear of getting their parents in trouble, especially if the intervention is not culturally sensitive.

The MRC has been successful in resolving many high-risk cases by engaging the family at risk, and the many support services around the family.

These are just a few of the initiatives launched by a new generation of activists and leaders. It reflects a sea-change in attitude, best expressed by Imam Hashmi: “We have a responsibility to speak up for the wrongs that take place.” The wider Canadian public can assist by providing expertise, resources, and partnerships.

The Shafia trial raises wider questions about our immigration policy.

Tooba Yayha denied ever hearing the term “honour killing”. Yet, her older sister, Sorayah, approved killing for the sake of honour, telling La Presse’s Michèle Ouimet in Kabul that “if someone committed a shameful act, they deserved to be eliminated”. Her son agreed, adding “Afghans are right to kill in the name of honour.” Her husband added that if his daughters dared to ruin his honour, he would “put them in a sack, and eliminate them so that no one could find a trace of them.” Clearly, there are some who are unapologetic, standing firmly behind such a heinous practice. Of these, a few migrate with such pathological thinking, unwilling to change.

Yet, the majority of immigrants arrive with the desire to build a better future. Yet, are they fully aware of the differences between their traditional culture and the freedoms afforded by a liberal democratic society? Are they willing to accept the reality that their children will be influenced by the host culture? What are we doing to educate potential immigrants about these fundamental differences?

ACCORDING TO PROFESSOR MUHAMMAD HERE THIS WOMAN AND HER THREE DAUGHTERS ARE NOW DEAD BECAUSE THE FAMILY WAS LOOKING TO REGAIN “HONOUR” AMONGST THEIR NEIGHBORS. WHILE THIS IS TRUE TO A DEGREE, HE SEEMS TO BE LEAVING OUT ANOTHER FACTOR IN THIS SORT OF REVOLTING CRIME. ISLAM. TO A MUSLIM MAN WHO KILLS HIS DAUGHTER(S), IT’S ALSO ABOUT STAYING RIGHT WITH ALLAH. CAN’T HAVE THEIR DAUGHTERS RUNNING OFF WITH NON MUSLIM BOYFRIENDS, REFUSING TO WEAR THEIR HIJAB…THAT’S JUST SO….UNISLAMIC.

Perpetrators of honour killings do so under the mistaken belief that their actions will restore respect for their family in their community, says a Canadian expert on the phenomenon.

On Sunday, Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, were each found guilty on Sunday of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the Shafia’s three daughters and the older man’s first wife.

The Crown had argued the deaths were honour killings, an attempt to restore the family’s dignity in the wake of the girls’ rebellious behaviour. The family denied these claims, but Justice Robert Maranger called the killings an “honourless crime” when addressing them after the verdict was handed down, saying the victims were killed because they “offended your completely twisted concept of honour…that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”

Amin Muhammad, a professor of psychiatry at Memorial University in St. John’s, Nfld. and an expert on honour killings, said such a crime is usually committed when a female establishes a relationship with a man outside of her family.

Muhammad told CTV News Channel on Sunday that the Shafia case, in which the Crown alleged that the father was angry that the girls had boyfriends and rebelled against some family rules, fits the bill for such a crime.

“Eliminating the victim, they feel that this is the right way to restore the honour,” Muhammad said after the verdicts were handed down. “But as you can understand there are some psychological dimensions also to this aspect, that these people who would commit this crime understand this particular honour in a faulty way, would have some psychological disturbance in their own personality and in their life.”

According to Muhammad, those who commit honour killings “believe that the people in their community, in their tribe or in their country of origin will hold them in high respect.”

Sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Shafia’s other wife Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, were found dead in one of the family cars at the bottom of a Kingston canal in June 2009.

The family said the women had gone out for a joyride and become lost, falling into the canal by accident. The Crown contended that the Shafias killed the women and staged the scene to look like an accident.

Muhammad said that while the family patriarch would have been the driving force behind the killings, his wife’s involvement comes as no surprise.

“I’m not surprised because in many such cases accomplices are women: mother, a grandmother, sister, and among the male members, it could be a brother, son, father, uncle or any other relative,” he said. “But women are also co-perpetrators under such situations.”

According to Muhammad, honour killings are “globally prevalent,” with about 5,000 women killed each year. In Canada, about a dozen cases have so far fit the bill for an honour killing, and he said more can be expected amid heightened awareness of such crimes.

However, the verdict sends a message that honour killings will not be tolerated in this country, he said.

“Those people who are even thinking about it or are even having those thoughts in their mind should be warned now by this verdict that Canada is not going to accept this particular term and cannot allow first-degree or heinous crimes under this particular term,” he said. “And I think this is a lesson to be learned for those people who come here with this mindset.”

HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO KEEP WELCOMING BACK THESE OBVIOUS ENEMIES OF CANADA? MILLIONS WASTED ON THEIR LEGAL FEES, INQUIRIES, ETC, JUST TO FIND OUT THEY ARE INFACT JIHADISTS WHO WOULD LOVE NOTHING MORE THAN THE OVERTHROW OF OUR WESTERN TRADITIONS TO BE REPLACED WITH THEIR STONE AGE IDEOLOGY…

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In a revealing new book, The Enemy Within, the Sun’s Ezra Levant brings Omar Khadr’s story back into the public eye. Having completed his U.S. sentence in October 2011, Omar Khadr could return to Canada at any time. He may well be released, thanks to a lenient system that will likely credit him for the time he has served awaiting trial in Guantanamo Bay. With Parliament back in session, Levant brings his razor-sharp perspective to bear on a story that is vital to our notions of citizenship and justice, and to our national security.

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So, what can we expect to happen with Omar Khadr when he inevitably returns to Canada?

Unfortunately, it’s not hard to guess. When Maher Arar came back to Canada after he was released from a prison in Syria, he was hailed as a hero and celebrity. Every anti-war, anti-Western activist with an axe to grind–which includes a large swath of Canada’s mainstream media–turned his homecoming into a triumph. If only they treated our wounded soldiers returning from Afghanistan so warmly.

If Maher Arar became a minor celebrity after his wrangle with the Syrian security system, with a secondary role played by Washington and Ottawa, it’s a virtual lock that Omar Khadr–the leading man in a supposed morality play pitting the Bush administration, perennial bugbear of the left, and its Guantanamo “gulag” against a purportedly naive and pitiable “child soldier” from Canada–is set to become nothing less than a superstar.

Unlike Arar, who enjoyed only a fraction of the sympathy and media coverage, Khadr will be coming home to the built-in fan club that he’s amassed since his capture. Arlette Zinck, the professor at Edmonton’s King’s University College who struck up a tender pen pal relationship with Khadr — “Whenever you are lonesome, remember you have many friends who keep you in their prayers. Each morning at 9 o’clock, I include you in mine,” she wrote to him in Guantanamo, referring to Khadr as “my dear student”–has led the charge in turning her campus into a factory for Khadr groupies.

Zinck actually testified in Khadr’s defence, calling him a “considerate young man … thoughtful and generous in spirit” in a sentencing hearing for a murder he himself confessed he took pleasure in reminiscing about (how considerate). In 2008, her school hosted a talk by Dennis Edney, one of Khadr’s lawyers, to give a speech about how “a young Muslim man has been branded a terrorist without trial” and the failures of the Canadian government in supporting Khadr’s case.

Along with a “consortium of activist groups,” Zinck’s students organized a rally later that year drawing seven hundred Khadr supporters to cheer for Khadr in downtown Edmonton, and Zinck herself has said she would personally recommend Omar Khadr’s application to attend King’s University College as a mature student.

But then he probably won’t have the time. Or the need. Omar Khadr isn’t likely to spend much time in prison once he applies to be released to Canadian custody in late 2011 after serving just one additional year in Gitmo (part of the plea agreement with the Obama administration). Under current Canadian law, Khadr should be able to apply for parole after serving one-third of his sentence –and his nine years in pre-trial custody means he’s already done that (even statutory release kicks in after two-thirds of a sentence). A free man,

he’ll have a career waiting for him here in Canada as a top speaker on the anti-American lecture circuit. Every pro-Islamist campus club, every unreformed mosque, as well as conferences for the reflexively anti-American New Democratic Party and the Canadian Bar Association, the national lawyers’ group that for years churned out reams of press releases calling for Khadr’s release and return to Canada, all are sure to hound the freed terrorist to come speak to them, paying him thousands of dollars an hour for the pleasure.

The Canadian Islamic Congress and Canadian Arab Federation have been vocal supporters of Khadr’s defence and will surely welcome him with open arms onto their staff: Who better to fundraise among their Israel-hating, America-hating supporters? Perhaps Judy Rebick–the founding publisher of the left-wing webzine rabble.ca,

who hailed Khadr as a new Nelson Mandela–will offer him a regular column to share his views with thousands of readers, and, as a professor of social justice and democracy at Toronto’s Ryerson University, maybe she’ll make him a featured speaker at her school. That is, when he isn’t busy with Professor Zinck’s students.

No doubt both will be in a race with hard-left universities like York University in Toronto, the University of Ottawa, and Concordia University in Montreal to be the first to award Omar Khadr an honorary doctorate degree. He could be the first terrorist ever nominated for the Order of Canada. What’s less sure is that the nomination will be declined.

Khadr will be courted by on-campus radio stations and left-wing reporters, becoming the go-to guy to comment on radical Islam, terrorism, Afghanistan, the fight against al-Qaida, American security, the evils of Israel, and a hundred other topics where his supposed expertise can be deployed to advance the same distorted world-view that’s been used to tilt virtually every Khadr story reported here over the last nine years.

If the CBC isn’t already planning a reality show around Omar Khadr and what they’d surely call his “struggles” to adapt back into Canadian society, it’s because they’re not quite quick enough on the uptake: Just give them a few more months and tax dollars. Khadr’s plea deal with the U.S. government may forbid him from personally profiting from telling stories about his crimes or the time he spent in Guantanamo Bay, but even if that portion of his plea deal with Washington were enforceable in Canada, it would be stunningly simple to get around: Either by funnelling the money to someone else–or perhaps even another fellow jihadi–or by ensuring that whenever and wherever he speaks, he refers to it as a more general discussion about the evils of Islamophobia.

Other notorious murderers have to live under strict conditions when they’re released: The child-killer Karla Homolka was ordered to keep police constantly apprised of her whereabouts after she was let out of prison. But will Canada’s National Parole Board require anything like that for Khadr? And as he’s travelling the country for all his speaking tours, media appearances, and awards, how many Canadians will be forced to share an airplane ride with the committed al-Qaida terrorist? There’s nothing right now that would stop the avowed jihadi from boarding the same Air Canada flight as you and your family, nor from loitering outside synagogues and Hebrew schools.

What fun it will be for Canadians to have to live with a confessed murdering Islamist walking free among them (you can be sure that any attempts by police or security to keep tabs on Khadr will be met with vigorous civil rights lawsuits by his friends in the Canadian Bar Association, and any landlord who refuses to rent him a flat or employer who refuses him a job is bound to find him-or herself in court facing down a phalanx of pro-Khadr lawyers).

The spectacle of an admitted al-Qaida terrorist with American blood on his hands smiling down at us from podiums and TV screens for years to come is chilling enough. But what’s sure to prove even more alarming about all the publicity and support that Omar Khadr is bound to enjoy when he comes home is that there’s nothing to stop him from spewing whatever vileness he wants. No one can tell Omar Khadr what to say. He can condemn our American allies –or our own soldiers–before a national audience with all the vitriol of a radical imam and get paid handsomely for it; he can denounce Canada and our soldiers just as easily. And, yes, he’s perfectly free to share his vicious hatred for Jews, Christians, and Americans. Omar Khadr will be free to spout as many militant lies as he likes, and, unlike other dangerous Islamists and al-Qaida supporters, he’s got a massive and sympathetic national fan base eager to hear him out.

After all, other terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay are frequently compelled to complete at least some kind of nominal de-radicalization process before being released again onto the streets of their home countries. But there’s nothing to date requiring Omar Khadr to do any such thing. Even German soldiers, after the Second World War, were required by the Allies to complete “deNazification” programs to rehabilitate their odious views about Jews and other minorities. After years of stewing in the propaganda and hatred of Hitler’s suffocating culture of indoctrination, they required some sort of antidote. Khadr, meanwhile, went from growing up with a family of terrorist radicals to palling around with terrorist radicals in the Hindu Kush, to spending his days consorting and studying the Qur’an with terrorist radicals in Guantanamo Bay. Don’t expect him to return to Canada as a big supporter of multi-ethnic harmony, democracy, women’s rights, and peace.

But enough public outrage could cause Canada’s legal system to grudgingly keep Khadr behind bars. If Canadian courts don’t give him credit for time served, and if he’s treated as an adult, not a young offender, Khadr could serve as much as 21/2 years in jail before being paroled. And the parole board could put conditions on him, such as living in a halfway house and seeking employment. Section 810.01 of the Criminal Code allows a judge to order participation in a treatment program or even the wearing of a monitoring device.

It’s theoretically possible–it could happen that Canada’s legal establishment will suddenly make a 180-degree change in their view of Khadr, and treat him as a convicted terrorist. Even then, he’ll be out on our streets while still in his 20s. But there’s only one sure way: Convincing the Conservative government not to let him back into Canada in the first place.

The Khadrs were once upon a time considered among the most reviled, most dangerous people ever to make this country their home. Thanks to years of hard cheerleading on our campuses, in our political movements, and in our newsrooms for the family’s most favoured son, Canada will soon become Omar Khadr’s country. The rest of us will just be forced to live in it.

Part 2: MONDAY

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Excerpt from The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr. Copywrite 2012 Ezra Levant. Published by McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

TAKE THE WHOLE FAMILY, CANADA IS NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR DISGUSTING STONE AGE IDEOLOGY. GO, GO BACK THERE AND YOU CAN BEAT, RAPE, STONE, TOSS ACID AND MURDER YOUR DAUGHTERS AND SISTERS TO YOUR HEARTS CONTENT. WITH ANY LUCK, YOU IDIOTS WILL EVENTUALLY COMPLETELY SELF DESTRUCT AND YOUR FILTHY IDEOLOGY WILL JUST BE A PASSING NOTE IN HISTORY.

Shafia’s relatives endorse honour-killings: Report

By Christie Blatchford, Postmedia NewsJanuary 28, 2012 7:55 PM

KINGSTON, Ont. — One of Tooba Mohammad Yahya’s sisters and her husband fully endorse the notion of honour-killing.

The startling revelation is contained in a Saturday story in Montreal’s La Presse, written by columnist Michele Ouimet, who interviewed the couple in Kabul two months ago.

As news of the story rocketed about the near-empty Kingston courthouse where jurors in the notorious Shafia murder trial are deliberating, the jurors were completing their first full day of work.

They retired late Friday, and have now spent more than 11 hours in their jury room. They are sequestered, always accompanied by two court constables, kept away from radio, TV, newspaper and web reports of any kind and stay overnight as a group at a local hotel.

It translates in English as, “to lose three daughters and have sinned three times.”

The reporter had facilitated a call between the two long-lost sisters, and when Soraya said she hoped she’d soon be out of jail, Yahya told her, “Yes my sister, there are problems. To lose three daughters and have sinned three times.”

Asked directly if she would kill for honour, Soraya replied yes, and said if the deed was sufficiently odious, the punishment is elimination.

Her husband Habibullah, who was sitting in a corner and not participating in the women’s discussion, at the mention of honour piped up. If his daughters — the couple has seven, and two boys — dishonoured his family, he wouldn’t hesitate, he told Ouimet.

“I would put them in a bag and eliminate them so no one would ever find their traces in Afghanistan,” he said.

Ouimet noted that some of the daughters were present, and quiet, when their father said that.

The scenario fits in squarely with what the prosecution’s so-called cultural expert, Dr. Shahrzad Mojab, testified to at trial.

“There’s no serious debate about the phenomenon (of honour-killing), but on its forms, how to name it and how to deal with it,” she told the jurors.

And overt threatening by fathers or other male relatives is common in such patriarchal cultures is part of how women’s compliance with the cultural rules is monitored, she said.

Both the 42-year-old Yahya and her 58-year-old husband Mohammad Shafia, who testified at trial, flatly denied ever hearing of honour killing before, as Yahya said with righteous indignation, “they put this name on our case.”

Two of Shafia’s siblings also testified, and both said they too had never heard of honour crimes.

Yahya’s remark to her sister would sound like an admission only to someone who didn’t see her in the witness stand, where for six days she came up with one imaginative explanation after another for incriminating things she either told police or said in wiretapped conversations with her husband.

The parents and their 21-year-old son Hamed are pleading not guilty to four counts each of first-degree murder.

Found in a submerged black Nissan on June 30, 2009, at the bottom of the Kingston Mills locks were Shafia daughters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, then respectively 19, 17 and 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad, Shafia’s secret other wife.

Rona Mohammad, who was 52, was brought to Canada months after the rest of the family arrived in June of 2007, and came into the country as a domestic servant on a visitor’s visa.

As she seemed to have been an inconsequential presence in the Shafia house, so was she not mentioned by Yahya in the La Presse story.

Prosecutors allege the deaths were a mass honour killing disguised as a car accident; defence lawyers say it was simply a tragic accident.

POLYGAMOUS AND ABUSIVE MARRIAGE, TERRIFIED DAUGHTERS, BULLY SONS…SOMEONE TELL ME AGAIN WHY WE’RE CELEBRATING THIS STONE AGE RELIGION AND CULTURE? WHY DO WE AFFORD THIS FILTH ANY SORT OF RECOGNITION OR RESPECT?

What the Shafia jurors didn’t hear

Mohammad Shafia, front, his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya and their son Hamed arrive at the Frontenac County Courthouse in Kingston, Ont. on Thursday

By Rob Tripp

KINGSTON, Ont. — Jurors began deciding the fate Friday of three members of a Montreal family accused of killing four other family members, unaware that there was an eyewitness to some events at the isolated spot where the victims were found dead.

The lone eyewitness did not testify at the trial and jurors were not told of his existence.

His account is among dozens of pieces of information that was withheld from the jurors, in some cases because of rulings by a judge before or during the trial. The information could not be reported publicly until the jury retired to begin deliberations.

Jurors are considering whether prosecutors proved that Afghan immigrant Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, are each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. The accused pleaded not guilty, prompting a trial that lasted more than three months and heard from 58 witnesses. Three of the 10-member Shafia family’s children were found dead in a submerged car discovered June 30, 2009, at the bottom of a shallow canal near Kingston, in eastern Ontario.

Sisters Zainab Shafia, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, had drowned. Mohammad was Shafia’s first wife in the polygamous family, though her identity was concealed to circumvent Canadian immigration laws. Experts were not able to conclude how and where the victims drowned.

Prosecutors contend the victims were incapacitated, either by being drowned or rendered unconscious, before they were placed inside the family’s Nissan Sentra and the car was pushed into the canal.

The accused mother and father have maintained that their eldest daughter took the car without permission from the motel where the family had stopped overnight. They suggested she went for a joyride and crashed the vehicle into the water.

Prosecutors allege the family’s other vehicle, a Lexus SUV, was used to push the Sentra over a stone lip and into the water. The Lexus was not at the canal that morning, according to the statements and testimony of Shafia and Yahya.

An eight-year-old boy testified, at a hearing held in February 2010, that he saw two vehicles at the canal at 1:40 a.m. on June 30. The boy, who lives in a house on a spit of land 200 metres from the canal, was awake, getting a drink of water when he heard what he described as a “splash, kind of a crash.” The boy went to his rear deck, which affords a clear view of the canal. He saw two vehicles, one larger vehicle with its headlights on, illuminating another, smaller vehicle, with its headlights off.

Handout

Tooba and Mohammad Shafia at their wedding in Kabul in 1988.

The smaller vehicle was on the grass “near the water,” the boy testified at the preliminary hearing, a proceeding that was conducted to determine if there was enough evidence to put the accused on trial. The larger vehicle appeared to be on the road.

The boy said he also heard another sound, like a car horn, “like just ‘beep’ and then gone.” He heard it a few minutes after the “splash-crash.” He did not see or hear any people. The boy said he watched for a few minutes, then went back inside his house and went back to bed at 2 a.m. Police interviewed him later that morning.

The boy’s story appears to contradict the account of Hamed, who told a man in a jailhouse conversation, that he followed his joyriding sister to the canal in the family’s Lexus and rear-ended the Nissan before his sister accidentally drove into the water. But in Hamed’s account, the two vehicles did not go to the canal until after 2 a.m., the time at which the family checked into a motel.

Jurors also did not hear about an incident in which Shafia waved a knife at his wife, Yahya, and threatened to stab her, according to one witness.

Fazil Javid, Yahya’s brother, described the incident when he testified at the preliminary hearing on Feb. 23, 2010. Javid said it happened at the Shafia home in Montreal a week after the deaths, when many relatives had gathered to offer their sympathy to the grieving family.

“He had threatened . . . my sister,” said Javid, who lives in Sweden.

Javid said he was leaving the Shafia house, walking to a car, when he heard a commotion behind him. He turned to see that his sister, Yahya, was crying, coming after him, asking him not to leave and making some sort of gesture with her hand across her throat, suggesting that she was fed up.

Shafia was following her with a large kitchen knife that he estimated had a six-inch blade. Javid said another one of his brothers who was there was restraining Shafia.

“Hamed was trying to take his mother back inside and he was telling his father that don’t make too much noise,” Javid testified.

Lars Hagberg for National Post

Kingston Mils Locks, where the bodies of the Shafia sisters and Rona Amir Mohammad were found on June 30, 2009.

Javid testified during the trial, telling jurors that Shafia asked him for help with a plan to murder Zainab, but he was not asked about the knife incident. Lawyers had discussed the incident before the trial and noted that it was highly prejudicial to Shafia.

Jurors also did not hear about a purported scheme to send Rona Mohammad back to Afghanistan from Canada.

Montreal lawyer Sabine Venturelli, who handled the Shafia family’s immigration matters, testified at the trial but she was not permitted to recount a telephone conversation with Zarmina Fazel, an aunt of Yahya’s who lives in Montreal. Fazel helped the Shafia family and sponsored Mohammad to come to Canada on a visitor visa.

Venturelli testified at the preliminary hearing in February 2009 that Mohammad was seeking permanent residency and her application was progressing well, when the lawyer received a phone call from Fazel in April or May 2009. Fazel, who spoke French and often translated for Shafia, was speaking on his behalf.

“(She was) telling me that Mrs. Rona was causing problems to the Shafia family and that Mr. Shafia was asking me to close the file of Mrs. Rona and to have her sent back to Afghanistan,” Venturelli testified at the preliminary hearing. “He was offering me an honorarium of $10,000.”

Prosecutors argued at the trial that they should be permitted to ask Venturelli about the $10,000 offer but defence lawyers argued it was hearsay and that if the Crown wanted to put the evidence in front of jurors, they could call Fazel as a witness. Prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis told the judge “that’s another matter,” during a discussion held in the absence of jurors. It was an obtuse reference to the fact that Fazel cited sudden memory loss about the $10,000 call and other events when she testified at the preliminary hearing.

While jurors heard considerable evidence that revolved around a lengthy police interrogation of Yahya, they did not know that Yahya fought to keep the interrogation out of their hands.

During a hearing held in February 2010, David Crowe, Yahya’s lawyer, argued that Yahya did not understand the process during the interrogation and she was offered improper inducements in exchange for her answers.

Judge Stephen Hunter concluded that while the interrogator had a strategic plan, so, too, did Yahya.

“The entirety of the evidence suggests that her consistent search for what proof the police had continued throughout,” Hunter said, in ruling that her statements were made voluntarily and were admissible. The key decision permitted prosecutors to put the entire 7-1/2-hour videotape in front of the jurors.

During the recording, Yahya is seen telling the police officer that the three accused were at the canal when the Nissan Sentra plunged into the water. When Yahya testified during the trial, she said she was not at the canal. She said she had lied to the interrogator about being at the scene because she wanted him to leave her alone and she believed it would prevent her son Hamed from being tortured.